Monday October 31st, 2011 - Fox Lake, IL It’s not important where, but in the last little while I was sitting quietly waiting to go on before a show when a potential customer walked up to a ticket taker at her booth to ask if she thought the show was worth seeing. The person wanted to know her honest opinion. The ticket person hadn’t noticed me sitting there, but I was totally within earshot of her and the one asking had no idea I was one of the comedians. This was a ripe opportunity to get some unvarnished feedback if there ever was one, and I braced myself for her answer. She wasn’t very complimentary of the other two acts, slicing them up rather thoroughly as a matter of fact. Then she got to me, and I expected the same. Not so. She went on and on about how funny she thought I was, and even tried to quote three or four of my jokes. The person who asked her actually laughed, and then took out his wallet and purchased four tickets. Just when I was starting to feel pretty good about myself, the ticket taker said “That guy is SO funny! He reminds me of a young Roger Dangerfield.” My heart sank. Rodney Dangerfield is my comedy hero, and I can’t think of anyone more famous as far as a comedian goes. In his time, he reached the pinnacle of notoriety with countless times on television and starring roles in several major motion pictures. Still, this woman wasn’t able to identify a major celebrity correctly. Part of me laughed, but it was also disturbing. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the first time I’d heard a famous comic’s name mangled. A lot of people seem to feel a need to express their opinion of who their favorite comedians are once they find out I’m one myself. I don’t know why they would think I care, but they do. “Oh, I love that Bill Crosby. He’s a hoot.” Any time someone tells me they think a guy is a ‘hoot’, I know I’m in trouble. These are the same people who call women ‘gals’ and add an ‘s’ to words whether they have one or not, as in “I went shopping at Walmart’s.” I can’t believe I still hear people refer to Jerry ‘Steinfeld’ or ‘Seinfield’, but I do. And, it happens a lot more often than I thought it would or should. When I appeared on The Late Late Show on CBS, I had quite a few ask me what ‘that Greg Ferguson’ was like. Really. I’m not looking to get famous just so people wandering around ‘Walmart’s’ pronounce my name correctly. They won’t. Fame is not what interests me in the least. What interests me is building a brand I can use to sell tickets. So far, I’m just a generic can of spinach. This isn’t an insecure desperate search for ego gratification. I want to get paid for all my years of sacrifice to put myself in a position to develop my abilities to this point. I put my heart and soul into this, and right now it seems like I’m not any closer to recognition than when I started. Something’s not right, and I need to fix it. But how? Everyone thinks they have the easy answer and have been telling me to ‘get a manager’ or ‘get on TV’. Really? Gee, I didn’t know it was that easy. Maybe I should contact Roger Dangerfield’s people.
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